Undeclared risk to artists doing PhDs – part 2
How does academia value new knowledge obtained through creative practice? As discussed in my previous post about myown PhD experience, I felt that it was seen as secondary to the primary, measurable element - the written thesis. What followed was a profound...
The hidden risk to artists undertaking PhDs
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I was awarded my PhD in creative practice in 2018. Since then, I feel as if I’ve been on something of a journey and I’d like to share some thoughts, primarily as a cautionary note directed at any artist contemplating beginning the...
The gratuitous searching for words
So much has changed yet much has remained centre-stage. The new body of work is increasing, albeit still slowly. I’m absorbed in the process itself. By that I mean, this iterative method I use is revealing minute aspects I’d overlooked before, to the point where every...
Adapting
Reading back over my last post, I'm saddened by how angry and negative it sounds to me now. But transitions are messy and I'm still within that process. Because of the implications of the Covid-19 virus, in late February I decided to cancel my solo exhibition in...
Art as process as commodity
This work is failing….in one sense. I’ve finally turned a familiar process used over many years, into a commodity. It has little going for it aesthetically yet I kept pushing it towards what felt like a solution…of sorts. Maybe ‘conclusion’ is a more accurate...
Re-presented and new directions
I’ve been looking closely at seaweed once again, as I walk along the shoreline each day, particularly the way it enfolds, wrapping into itself. Beginning this piece about 10 days ago, I look at it now and feel really intrigued, I’m pulled in and find myself...
Conversing with Ghosts
The ritual of quietly adding to the textile reflects my day; each gesture adds another phrase to the textile’s evolving narrative, as it exists in my here and now. Did the first woman to work on this cloth’s surface well over 100 years ago, do the same each day as I...
Unashamedly solipsistic
Figure 1 ‘I intend to try and work harmoniously with all of my evolving selves’. I wrote these words in August 2018, my last blogpost. At that time, I had little idea, to be honest, of what this well meant intention would entail and how this in turn,...

An Existential post-PhD angst
I wonder if undertaking a practice based PhD, for some older artists at least, can create unforeseen challenges once the long and immersive path has reached its destination. Despite having a creative practice spanning more than 40 years, now that I have...

Thesis Summary: Exploring the Embodied Experience of Ageing through Creative Practice
[…] what really matters is neither the sociology nor the biology of ageing – but the narrative of the self. The stories we tell ourselves of how to be our age as we age. How are we to live our lives? Segal, 2013, p xiv Segal’s words hold resonance for us...